


To the victor

by ladylapislazuli



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crimson Flower Route, Forced Marriage, Gardening, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon, Unrequited to requited love, crimson flower felix
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:20:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28536525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladylapislazuli/pseuds/ladylapislazuli
Summary: “Was I always part of the bargain?” Dimitri asks. “Was… this?”
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 71
Kudos: 210





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **TRIGGER WARNINGS: Consent issues**. Power imbalance. Mental health issues (incl. references to suicidal ideation/attempts). Problematic language and attitudes to sex (with use of sexist slurs).
> 
> Mind the tags! Note that while this fic contains no non-con or dub-con scenes, please be very wary of the premise of forced marriage/war prize marriage and all the power dynamics entailed if they could be triggering for you.
> 
> \- - -
> 
> Please note that while this fic is mostly canon-compliant, it diverges from the final chapters of the Crimson Flower route.
> 
> HUGE shout out to [MagpieCrown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagpieCrown/pseuds/MagpieCrown)/@royalcorvids, my partner in crime with this concept. They also did some GORGEOUS art! Links in the end notes.

When Felix returns, Dimitri is in his garden.

The moment he steps through the gate is always a moment of peace. A moment where Felix’s shoulders relax, the tension ever-present in his temples loosening, the hand constantly darting to the hilt of his sword finally coming to rest at his side.

Home. He’s home.

Dimitri doesn’t look up when the gate swings open. He’s inspecting a rose bush, a furrow between his brows. He pauses, pulls off one of his gardening gloves, and touches his bare fingers to the leaves. Shifting the leaves ever-so-gently to the side, both to avoid the sting of their thorns and prevent himself from doing any damage.

Felix approaches slowly. He is still dressed in his riding clothes, still sweaty and tired from his journey. Came to see Dimitri the moment he was out of the saddle, before setting so much as a foot in the house. A habit. One he intentionally doesn’t think about.

(Something in him always goes still, when his eyes alight upon Dimitri’s face.)

“That looks like black spot,” Dimitri mutters. To Felix or to himself – it doesn’t matter. He’s focused on his rose bush, tutting at it as he peers closer.

Felix takes him in as he comes to stand beside him. Dimitri’s hair is pulled back out of his face, long enough now to braid. He is simply dressed – underdressed, indeed, wearing little more than a loose shirt and trousers, no belt, plain work boots covering his feet. Dirt on his knees, and a smudge of it on one of his cheeks. Flashes of silver about his neck, about his wrists, but otherwise unadorned.

He’s calm. Busy with his task, and out of his bedroom. Not flinching away from Felix’s presence as he so often did, at first. As he still sometimes does.

It takes a moment for the sensation in Felix’s chest to clear enough to allow him to speak. He says, quietly, “Your hat.”

It’s not much of a greeting. Not much of a welcome from Dimitri, either, though Felix wasn’t expecting one. But Felix picks Dimitri’s hat up from where it lies forgotten on the bench. Offers it out.

Dimitri is still. Even in profile, Felix can see the flicker of his expression, the internal warfare dancing across his face. He angles his head towards Felix – pauses. Then slowly, his eyes come up. Meeting Felix’s, guarded, neutral.

Felix is still. Offering the hat – patient, in this if in nothing else. It does not come naturally. His instinct is to sigh, to roll his eyes, to shove it onto Dimitri’s head himself and be done with it.

He does none of those things. Just holds it, feeling like a fool. (Better than any of the other things he could be feeling.)

Dimitri takes a breath. Reaches out and takes the hat from him, setting it on his head and shading his fair skin from the midday sun. Then he goes back to worrying at his rose bush, brow furrowing as he angles its branches this way and that in order to get a better look.

He does not thank Felix. He would have, once, overly sincere and painstakingly polite over even the smallest of favours. Constantly aware of his status, and always at pains to make up for it in what little ways he could.

He has no such fear, now.

“I think it _is_ black spot,” Dimitri declares, suddenly decisive. He whirls away, hurrying over to the workbench where his tools are laid out. He takes up the pruning shears, returning to Felix’s side with an expression of absolute focus as he bends to prune his rose bush.

He acts like Felix isn’t there. It’s… still an improvement. On what he was like before.

“Have you been well?” Felix asks him. Halting, awkward, for gentleness is not in his nature. His sword is at his hip, sharp and deadly as ever. His hands are rough and calloused, muscles still aching from the ferocity of recent combat.

It is quiet here, in Dimitri’s garden. Felix tries to match it, as ill as the suit fits.

Dimitri stills. Shrugs. Tosses a branch onto the rough stone path then goes ferreting back in the bush, looking for more of the unwanted black spot.

The path is only new. Still being built in some places, stones laid out painstakingly slow. Dimitri keeps changing his mind. Felix will come into his garden, offer awkward, fumbling praise on his progress, and Dimitri will have the whole thing ripped up again. Garden beds resituated, path torn up, the whole thing dug up and started over again.

But the rose bushes, once planted, have stayed. They line the wall into Dimitri’s chambers. A month ago, when they first came into bloom, Felix looked at them too long and Dimitri made an all-too-familiar face. Cagey, hostile, unhappy. Clearly considering moving them too, though transplanting them in bloom could damage them. He’d touched the petals in silent contemplation, caught in an internal war.

When Felix next visited, the rose bushes were still there. Dimitri’s eyes were darting, his shoulders tense, and Felix made sure not to look at them. Made sure not to say anything at all. 

He’s not sure what to say now. How to break the strained silence, how to broach the gap. Felix isn’t good at this. Frustration surges, even though he knows it will do no good, but anger is Felix’s old friend. He doesn’t know how else to be.

“Have you been eating?” he asks. It’s too sharp, too pointed. An accusation, though he doesn’t mean it to be.

Dimitri straightens. Eyes fixed on the ground, lips twisted. “As my lord ordered.”

Felix flinches. Just a little. But Dimitri doesn’t even acknowledge the blow.

He picks up the branch that he threw onto the path. Sets it on the bench, along with his pruning shears and his hat. Back pointedly towards to Felix as he opens the glass doors into his chambers. Silent. Maddeningly, infuriatingly silent.

“Dinner tonight,” Felix says. An order, not a suggestion. One he wishes he could take back as soon as the words leave his lips.

Dimitri pauses. Looks over his shoulder. Looks Felix dead in the eye. “As my husband commands.”

Felix’s expression must flicker, because Dimitri barks a laugh. Harsh, derisive. A little too wet. He goes inside. Shuts the door, draws the curtains. Leaving Felix to stand alone in his garden.

\- - -

When the emperor had first proclaimed his sentence, Dimitri howled with anger.

Felix stood up on the dais. Watching, just watching, as Dimitri thrashed and writhed and ranted, throwing two soldiers bodily across the room before the rest managed to pin him down. It took six of them, despite the chains that bound his wrists and ankles, to hold him steady. Another two to force him to his knees.

He looked like a mad thing. Panting, wild-eyed, teeth curled back in a snarl that rendered his face almost unrecognisable. Still covered in blood, his resistance re-opening his injuries.

“Hold him steady,” Felix barked as Dimitri fought his restraints, more blood splattering down onto the stone beneath him.

The bargain was barely struck. At any moment, the emperor might change her mind and order Dimitri’s execution. (That couldn’t happen. Felix wouldn’t _allow_ it to happen, and something wild and desperate clawed at his throat.)

But Dimitri’s eyes, when they fixed on Felix, were filled with nothing but betrayal. “ _You_.”

“Hold your tongue before the emperor,” Felix snarled. Blunt, angry. (Afraid. So afraid that Dimitri, in his resistance, would damn himself.)

“Felix,” said Edelgard. “Is that any way to speak to your betrothed?”

Around them, the court laughed and jeered. Dimitri thrashed again, only for the soldiers to slam him back down into the stone. He bared his teeth, but the mockery did not subside, would never subside. Edelgard tipped her head as though his suffering were mere curiosity, his humiliation idle amusement, and the court howled with satisfaction.

But Edelgard flashed a look up at Felix, questioning, testing. And there was nothing like cruelty in her eyes. 

_Are you sure?_

Felix could not speak. Silent, sick to the stomach. And barely, just barely, he inclined his head.

“To Fraldarius’ whore!” a lord howled, met by roars of laughter, and Dimitri struggled so hard he dripped with blood.

A pause. A tightening of Edelgard’s lips, a flicker across her face, Dimitri’s life held in the balance. _Death would be kinder,_ she had told Felix. _Death would be cleaner_.

But death was so very, very final.

\- - -

Felix visits Dimitri's garden again a week later.

It is early morning and Felix is out for a walk when he sees Dimitri tending to his flowers. His even steps stutter, though by rights he should not startle at the sight of Dimitri. His own husband in his own home, in the garden Felix built for him.

Dimitri is watering. Hair pulled loosely back, messy, so that strands are falling about his face. There is an air of quiet about him, something almost… peaceful. So different from how he was, how he has been for so many, many months.

(Throwing things. Breaking things. Howling insults and pleas alike.)

At the sight of him now, Felix’s heart does something strange. He approaches, almost without meaning to. Stops just outside Dimitri’s gate. “You’re up early.”

Dimitri goes still at the sound of his voice. Startled. He turns his head with all the wariness and suspicion of a wild animal, despite the cheerful yellow watering can in his hand.

The birds are chirping. The mild breeze rustling the trees around the grounds. Dimitri does not reply.

"Come and walk with me," Felix says. It's a request, not an order – not supposed to be, at least. 

But Dimitri’s jaw tenses. For a moment it looks like he might like to say something, but doesn’t. He sets down the can, shoulders hunching. Obeying, silently, like a dog coming to heel.

"Don't look like that,” Felix says, barely keeping himself from snapping. The sullenness, the melancholy, the endless, endless silence – it frustrates him. He isn’t a patient man. But... “You can say no."

A pause. Dimitri fiddles with his gardening gloves, and there is a flash of silver at his wrist. A reminder.

Edelgard’s wedding gift. Fine chains about his wrists and throat, stripping him of all that he is.

Dimitri keeps his gaze averted. Says, slowly, “Can I?”

His eyes come up, and Felix finds himself swallowing, casting about for something to say. Unsure, off-kilter. Dimitri is strange, and difficult, and so very, very delicate. He _wants_ to say ‘don’t be such a fool’. Wants to say ‘stop acting so miserable’ _._ Wants to remind Dimitri that he is _alive_ , despite everything that happened, despite Dimitri’s own mistakes.

He doesn’t. Dimitri’s angry phase was bad enough. But this mournful, sombre obedience… Felix’s mouth twists.

“You can,” he says. 

Dimitri considers Felix’s this. Eyes downcast, posture tense. Then he nods. Pulls off his gardening gloves and sets them down on the bench. Unlatches the gate and steps, wordless, out of his garden.

He is so contrary. Felix doesn’t understand him. Might never understand him.

They walk in silence. Around the grounds of the manor, rambling and a little wild, for Felix prefers it that way. Told the groundskeeper to let it overgrow, to make it into the home of his memories, all towering trees and bushes. A private sanctuary from the world outside, as wild and carefree as his mother.

She loved the grounds, loved to garden, though in a haphazard sort of way. There were no topiarised bushes or immaculate flowerbeds like the kind he has seen in Enbarr. Only wildflowers, and evergreens, and things hardy enough to make it on their own.

“Dimitri,” Felix starts, when the silence between them grows unbearable. But he stops again just as quickly. Hesitating.

Felix never hesitated during the war, not once, for hesitation is not in his nature. He is quick, decisive, determined. Invaluable to the emperor and her cause, for once he raised his sword he was unstoppable, once he made up his mind he was unyielding. _The indomitable Felix Fraldarius_ , the soldiers called him. _Unconquerable. Invincible_.

Felix made his choice. Sided with the Empire, and not once has he wavered.

And yet here is Dimitri. With a different kind of battle. One from which neither of them can emerge victorious. (And Felix hesitates.)

“I’m going into town today,” he says eventually. “Do you need anything?”

No reply. Felix bites down the familiar rush of frustration. He _despises_ sullen. Forces himself to rein it in, because snapping does no _good_.

The flash of anger, though, is quickly drowned out when Felix turns to look at him. Dimitri is raising his face to the sun, watching a bird fly by in a rare moment of honest fascination. Lips parted, eyes shining.

Felix’s chest clenches. For a moment he forgets that he is waiting on a reply. Simply watches the way the breeze plays with the loose strands of Dimitri’s hair, the way the sunlight reflects in his blue, blue eyes.

For a moment, just a moment, Felix’s mind is quiet. Empty of thought. Empty of anything but the smile hinting at the corner of Dimitri’s lips.

The bird passes. Dimitri notices Felix’s stare. His face shutters, shoulders drawing in, lips thinning. Tense, hostile.

He is not always so. Sometimes… _sometimes_ , he…

“Dimitri,” Felix repeats. For once, patience is not difficult to come by. “Do you want anything from town?”

Dimitri’s expression shifts. Felix senses it coming. The huff of breath. The bitter twist to his lips. “Does it matter what I want, my lord husband?”

He does this a lot. Needles and jabs, resentful even of offers kindly meant. Reminds Felix, constantly, of the circumstances that tied their lives together, as though Felix could possibly forget.

Felix took Dimitri’s hand in his. Took Dimitri as his own. Took responsibility for his danger and his violence and the threat he poses to the Empire in existing even after the war is won. Felix took it all upon his own head, and in doing so saved Dimitri from the executioner’s axe.

(But that is the problem. Felix knows it, deep down, though he does not let himself linger on it. Felix took _everything_.)

“I’ll stop by the bookstore on my way back and see if I can get you anything,” Felix says, ignoring Dimitri’s hostility.

He is practical. In this, and in all things. He must be. Dimitri may be angry with him, but that is no reason for him to suffer boredom in his confinement. Dimitri did not want most of the things he has in his life. Not books, nor the food Felix has provided, nor the clothing upon his back. He did not want the garden Felix built him. Did not want a husband, not even to save his own life.

It was the only way. The _only_ one. A marriage of necessity, nothing more, as ungrateful and resentful Dimitri chooses to be.

They are married in name alone, but married nonetheless. Felix has had no choice but to be practical.

“Do what you will,” Dimitri mutters. An indictment in and of itself, a silent _nothing I can do to stop you_ attached.

\- - -

Dimitri had paced his bedroom for days when he first arrived. Paced and paced like a caged animal. So angry. So very, very angry.

“ _Husband_ ,” he had said. Snarling, laughing, hysterical. A thousand things in one. “What sick joke is this? You intend to keep me here like some – some plaything? An object for your amusement?”

Felix stood at the threshold. He had not set a single foot in Dimitri’s bedroom since the eve of their wedding.

“You should be thanking me,” he’d snarled back. “Don’t blame me for your insensibility. You sided against the empire, _with_ the church, for no reason other than your own foolish notions of what the church should be. The Immaculate One was a tyrant.”

Dimitri, as always, wasn’t interested in debating the philosophy of their respective sides.

“You turned your back on everything,” he’d said. Voice cracking, eyes wild. “You betrayed everyone you once held dear! Now you keep me here like an _exhibit_. I cannot fathom what twisted satisfaction you must glean from it, seeing me reduced to nothing. To _worse_ than nothing. Your _concubine_.”

“I haven’t laid a finger on you,” Felix had growled, seething. (Sickened.)

“If you had any honour left, you would have just killed me.”

“You’re a _fool_.” Felix had stormed away, slamming the door behind him. Leaving Dimitri – unharmed, _alive_ – to all his furious ingratitude.

As though honour had anything to do with this. As though pride were a cause worth dying for.

\- - -

“Come to dinner,” Felix bids him.

He sits at one end of the table. Waiting, as he often does, for Dimitri to arrive and take his seat at the other end, cold and imperious. They always sit at opposite ends, though the table is not a large one. The Fraldarius manor hosts few dinner parties these days. Hosts few guests, even of those whom Felix counts among his friends.

He is much occupied with his new husband. That is the phrasing they use in their letters when they ask him why they have not seen him in Enbarr. He travels within Fraldarius often, within the newly Imperial Faerghus, but not to the heart of the Empire. 

He does not like to be away from Dimitri for too long.

Dimitri is late to dinner. Late as he never would have been when they were younger. He leaves his chambers almost thirty minutes after their arranged time. Felix hears the click of his shoes on wood as he crosses the ancient floorboards. He comes into the dining room, and inclines his head.

“My apologies,” Dimitri says, the very picture of politeness.

He has dressed up for dinner. Dressed in the clothes Felix bought him – not the drab, bulky garb so typical of Faerghus, but the fashionable cleaner cuts that have travelled here at high speed from the heart of the Empire. Crisp white overcoat, dark trousers, sleek boots. His hair is pulled into a low ponytail, loose strands falling messy about his face as they always do these days, but even that does not diminish him.

Five years is a long time. Long enough that his boyish sweetness, always at odds with the cruelties of which he is capable, has faded entirely. In its place are sharp cheekbones, piercing eyes, the strong, proud line of his nose. 

He is arresting. Even when he is so cold and quiet. Even when he is so…

_Unhappy_ , Felix’s mind supplies, before he shoves the thought ruthlessly away. Dimitri is _alive_. All the rest… that can follow after.

“No matter,” Felix says. Means it, too. Some battles, he has learned the hard way, are not worth fighting. “But the food’s gone cold.”

He waits for Dimitri to sit before he picks up his fork. Eats his own food, cold enough that it’s beginning to congeal, without complaint. Hears the click of Dimitri’s own knife and fork.

Silence. More silence.

Felix eats. But inevitably his eyes drift up to look at Dimitri. Dimitri’s shirt is a luxurious, silken blue, one of the ones Felix bought for him when they were first married. One of the ones Dimitri despised. _Pretty things for your whore to wear, is that it?_

Dimitri sees him looking. Felix doesn’t speak, but Dimitri reads him quickly. Smiles, utterly humourless.

“Does silk suit me better than armour, do you think?”

“Better than a coffin,” Felix says. Too quick, too harsh, despite his intentions.

“Is it? I am still not so sure,” Dimitri fires back. Just as brutal. Far more cruel.

Dimitri’s bedroom was on the third floor when first they married. He lives on the ground floor now. In a suite of chambers, bigger, lighter. Safer. Felix tore the ancestral house apart to make it so. Ripped a hole in the ancient stone to make room for beautiful glass doors out onto the grounds. Knocked through internal walls to reshape receiving rooms into a bedroom, sitting room, washroom, spacious and cheerful. Built him a garden, walled and private and entirely Dimitri’s own.

Dimitri was so angry when he first moved in. He raged, threatening and snarling, breaking things with the little strength he still possessed. He raged, but eventually the fire went out. And all that was left…

Felix did not sleep, those first few months. He did not sleep. Could not, for fear of what Dimitri might do.

“Tell me something, Felix,” Dimitri says. Tone soft, even conversational. Head tipped to the side as though he is curious.

There is no fight in him. Not anymore.

“Was it worth it?” he asks. “All the death you wrought, all the people you betrayed. Was it worth it?”

The grandfather clock in the corner of the dining room ticks, and ticks, and ticks. Dimitri raises his chin. Graceful, elegant, despite the accusation in his eyes. He is so far from what he used to be. No bumbling, no brutality. Just this. This cold, quiet man dressed in his finest, here in his husband’s house.

“We’ve had this conversation a hundred times,” Felix says.

Dimitri has screamed these words at him before. Dimitri has hurled them, along with anything he could get his hands on – books, trinkets, even a knife. Dimitri has sobbed them, too. Sobbed them.

Nothing changed. Not even Felix.

“I suppose the subject must bore you by now,” Dimitri says, practically conversational. Smiling in a way that doesn’t meet his eyes, a strange impersonation of a nobleman at a dinner party, all artifice and false charm. “But of course, you have already claimed your prize. All the money and power in the world. The emperor’s favour. And… me.”

A pause. Some emotion spasms across Dimitri’s face, his mask cracking, his composure slipping.

_Why_? He had asked Felix. _What do you want with me?_

Felix doesn’t speak. It only makes things worse.

“Was I always part of the bargain?” Dimitri asks. “Was… this?”

He gestures. To himself. To the space between him and Felix. To the grotesque caricature of married life that they represent.

Felix wears his wedding band on his finger. Always. It is a symbol, a sign, a testament to the choice he made on the field of that final battle. The endless mantra running through his mind. _Not Dimitri, not Dimitri, not Dimitri._

He didn’t understand it then. Still doesn’t understand it now. He joined Edelgard, without pause, without regret. And for five years of war he was Felix the indomitable, Felix the irrepressible, staunch and unflinching in his cause. For five years he held the line, until the professor’s return propelled them to victory. For five years he knew he would do anything, no matter the cost, to see his work done. 

But in that final battle, Dimitri fell. Rhea, in all her cowardice, left him and his to die. Dimitri fought with eyes blazing and teeth bared and spears lodged in his back, dripping blood but standing his ground to the last. Death coming for him, coming and coming, closer and closer as Edelgard raised her axe on high.

And Felix wavered. Faltered. Fell.

“I’ve already explained what happened,” Felix says. Explained as much as he is capable of, anyway. Explained as much as Felix himself understands.

Dimitri’s lips twist, bitter. He is breathing too heavily, and Felix can see his distress. Has become well-acquainted with it over the months since their marriage.

But Dimitri looks away. Drops his head. He wears the clothes that Felix bought for him, the expensive silk shirt that makes his eyes so painfully, strikingly blue. Around his throat, the thin silver chain gleams in the candlelight. 

He subsides. Back into wretched, sullen obedience. Back into silence. The fight drained out of him at last.

Felix takes a bite of his dinner. It tastes of nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ART!!!
> 
> Bridemitri: https://twitter.com/royalcorvids/status/1318266712563847177
> 
> The rose garden scene: https://twitter.com/royalcorvids/status/1345869336750272512


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Mental health issues (references to suicide attempt).

Felix despises letter-writing. But it cannot be put off forever.

He is in his office, sorting through the correspondence that has slowly built up. Social, mostly, and he sets those letters to the side. Dorothea, Bernadetta, Ferdinand - they have all written, and they seldom have business to communicate. They write with more pleas for him to visit, most likely. More pleas for him to write more, and show his face in Enbarr, and come to some foolish social event that is of little significance, when all is said and done.

He will get to it. Eventually. When he has the time, and when he has the inclination to think of matters further afield, and people other than… well.

He is much occupied with his new husband. They know this. They all know.

A familiar seal catches his eye as he sorts, and promptly distracts him from that line of thought. The letter is largely unadorned, but the seal and the handwriting unmistakable.

Edelgard has written to him. _Personally_. Not one of her aides requesting a report, nor a letter grandly embellished and rolled up and presented to him by the hands of a messenger on horseback as is the usual method of the emperor’s official correspondence.

Felix is used to official correspondence. He deals with most imperial business in Faerghus, and she trusts his eye. Despite her victory, despite the war being resoundingly won, the continent is still unsettled, Faerghus still in disarray. No one is more equipped to bring it back into order than the indomitable Felix Fraldarius. She knows that. Trusts him, even at a distance, even now.

 _Dear Felix,_ she writes. His given name, no title. And when Felix glances at the signature at the bottom, she has signed _Edelgard von Hresvelg_. None of her holdings or titles. Nothing.

They are friends. But she is an emperor above all else. The lack of ornamentation is, in other words, striking. It says far more, in fact, than the letter’s written content.

An inquiry after Felix's health, the state of Faerghus, a note of thanks for his work. _I wish we could see more of you, though I understand you have duties in Faerghus. I trust marriage is suiting you well_ , she writes.

It is a subtle thing. She does not ask after Dimitri, not directly. But the rest of the letter is so insubstantial - vague platitudes from a woman well-known for brisk forthrightness - that her intent is clear.

Felix has been silent a long time. Too long.

(“Do not punish him so,” Edelgard had said when Felix made his plea, and Felix had not understood, for he meant no punishment at all.

He understands better, now.)

 _My husband is in good health_ , he writes. Formal and polite. Foreign. His eyes catch on the word _husband_ before he shakes himself and writes on. _He is busy with his garden._ Then, feeling foolish, he adds, _His roses are in bloom_.

It is an unnecessary detail. But somehow, he thinks that Edelgard would like to know.

He signs the letter and sets it aside to be sent first thing in the morning, high priority. Flicks through the rest of the pile – local council, someone asking for money, local tradespeople updating him on the status of his latest order for Dimitri’s garden, which Felix will get onto quickly.

But another letter catches his attention. It is wedged between a bill and an advertisement, so nondescript that Felix almost misses it. The envelope is cheap, barren but for Felix’s name and address written in clear, precise script. Frowning, Felix opens it.

It is from Dedue.

A flash of memory. Soldiers transforming into beasts before their eyes. Dedue raising his fist on high, stone in his hand and _for His Majesty_ upon his lips. A bolt of magic from Dorothea striking it from his hand, Bernadetta drawing back her bow and shooting an impossible shot. Dedue's knees hitting the ground, axe falling from his grip.

 _Huh_ , Felix thinks. _So he survived after all_.

 _Your Grace,_ the letter reads.

_Greetings. I write to request your indulgence in passing news to your lord husband. I have enclosed a letter for him and would be deeply obliged if you would give it to him on my behalf. If you are not so inclined, I hope you will consent to convey to him that I am in good health, and hope he is much the same._

_D._ _M._

Dedue has not signed his full name – a poor attempt at subterfuge from a man ill-suited to the task of confusing Imperial spies – but Felix knows him all the same. No one else would try to make him their messenger boy.

Alive. Dedue is alive.

It takes Felix a moment to gather himself. To set his own letter to the side and pick up the one intended for Dimitri. It is not long, for even on paper Dedue is a taciturn man, but it is still longer and less painfully polite than the one addressed to Felix.

_I hope you are well. I have prayed daily that you are whole and hale. I hope, too, that you will write to me. I failed you utterly, but if there is mercy for me in your heart, let me know that you are safe._

Felix exhales. Something clenches in his gut, but he forces the feeling down. Practical. Pragmatic. That is who he is.

He taps his fingers against the desk, considering his options. He is not a stupid man, nor one inclined to take unnecessary risks. Dimitri is safe here, but only just, protected by a wall of slander and Felix’s own infamous name. Safe, in other words, while he seems powerless and useless, while his existence poses no threat, and his allies are dead and gone.

Dedue is just one man. And yet he is a man well-known as Dimitri’s staunchest ally. Just one man, and yet if there is even a whisper of Dimitri’s supporters reforming…

Edelgard warned him. From the very beginning, she warned him.

Felix stands. Goes to look out the window, clasping his hands behind his back. It is dangerous to give Dimitri the letter. He should not encourage a correspondence between the two. Not when Dimitri’s situation is so precarious in ways not even Dimitri, confined and shielded from the outside world as he is, fully understands.

And yet... Dimitri would be so happy.

Felix sighs again. Rubs his hands over his face, catching sight of his ring, and a strange jolt goes through him.

They are married. Felix is Dimitri’s husband. And yet here he stands, reading his mail and deciding whether or not to give it to him. Governing him as though he is an unruly child, nothing like a proper husband.

It is… not what Felix thought a marriage would be.

He twists the ring around his finger, something welling up inside him that he shoves ruthlessly back down. It’s not a real marriage. It’s a bargain on a piece of paper, a gilded prison where Dimitri may live out the rest of his life in peace, if not in freedom. It doesn’t matter if Felix is a bad husband. It’s not a real union to begin with.

(“He’s _nothing_ now,” Felix had insisted as Edelgard paced, still in her armour after that fateful battle, Dimitri’s life hanging by a mere thread. “The Faerghus rebellion is crushed. There’s no one left to try and rescue him, even if he survives this. Let him live. Let him be a symbol.”

Of what, Felix wasn’t sure at the time. His mind skirted around the thought, faintly sick. _Spoil of war_. _Trophy. The last piece of Faerghus, subjugated by the empire’s will._

It didn’t matter. So long as Dimitri lived, it didn’t _matter_.

Dimitri’s hand forced into his own. Chains about his wrists and throat, binding his Crest, stripping him of his strength. Fury, hatred, _fear_. Then the silence. The endless, aching silence.)

 _Married_. What a joke.

Felix folds Dimitri's letter neatly along the crease. Dedue did not seal it, likely anticipating that Felix would read it to ensure he was not planning some ill-thought-out rescue that would get them all killed. Then Felix goes to find Dimitri.

\- - -

Felix’s first gifts to Dimitri left much to be desired. A ring Dimitri never wears. A husband he did not ask for. A name to replace his own.

“I will never yield,” Dimitri had snarled. “I will find a way to kill you, snake, I swear it.”

They had been married three weeks. Dimitri was pacing his bedroom, spitting vitriol and threatening violence, entirely beyond reason. Felix stood in the doorway, his arms folded, his own teeth bared. Snarling back. Trying to make Dimitri see _sense_.

Even then, he did not cross the threshold. Even in the haze of his anger and baffled, indignant frustration. He did not set foot in Dimitri’s bedroom. Not a single toe.

“Swear all you like,” Felix had said. “There’s no use fighting. There’s nothing you can do now.”

 _Accept where you are. Cut your losses. You have survived, you are safe_ _-_ _let it be enough for now. Let it be enough._

That’s how he meant it. Logical advice, a cool summary of the facts, and the easiest way forward. Dimitri had been defeated - there was no use in biting the hand that fed.

He didn’t mean for it to be crushing. He didn’t _know_.

Later, much later, Dimitri would repeat those words back at him, face streaked with tears and feet precariously close to the ledge. He would cry silently, arms wrapped around himself and his body shaking and shaking and shaking.

And for the second time in his life, Felix the indomitable was nothing of the sort.

\- - -

Dimitri’s chambers on the ground floor were never intended to be what they are now.

They were once receiving rooms, and the favourites of Felix's mother. Warm rooms, beautiful rooms, the only beautiful rooms in an otherwise cold and militaristic house, looming tall and imposing over the countryside. 

They are still beautiful. Broken apart and remade anew into a sanctuary, rooms just for Dimitri. Self-contained. Set apart.

Felix knocks on the door. There is no answer, so he knocks again, biting down the surge of annoyance when there is no reply.

Dimitri often ignored him, in the beginning. Either ignored him or answered his knocking by throwing something heavy at the door. Felix isn’t good at being patient, even when he has to be, even when he’s trying.

And he is trying. He really is trying.

“Dimitri,” he calls. Dimitri never ignores a _direct_ address. Not anymore.

Still, there is no answer. So Felix exhales and walks back through the house, all the way to the front door and all the way around the side. It’s a long walk, but Felix doesn’t go into Dimitri’s personal chambers, not ever. The garden, yes, because while private it is still somehow… different.

Felix set foot in Dimitri's private space only once, on the night of their wedding. He has never done so again.

He finds Dimitri in his garden. The garden beds are in disarray once more, painstakingly, laboriously relocated and re-shaped – another change of mind about the layout – but the roses are still in their place. Still blooming. Too precious, perhaps, to risk.

Dimitri is tending them. Fussing with their blooms, checking inside them, his hair falling loose about his face. Looking for bugs, perhaps, or more black spot. Felix knows little of gardening – building a garden for Dimitri was his last resort. His last, fumbling attempt to give Dimitri something that would make him…

 _Happy_ , Felix thinks, but he shoves the thought away. He isn’t a sentimental man. Dimitri needed something to do, is all. A project. Felix understands the importance of a goal.

Dimitri straightens up from his roses as Felix approaches, though he makes no move that could be interpreted as welcoming. He’s wearing his sunhat, for once, and Felix is startled by the jolt of pleasure that goes through him seeing it.

It’s just a stupid hat. It doesn’t matter.

Felix unlatches the gate. Steps into the garden, a bee buzzing somewhere near his ear. He can smell the roses already.

“I have a letter for you,” he says without preamble.

Dimitri raises his eyebrows. Makes no move to take off his gardening gloves. Says, dull and uninterested, “Oh?”

“From Dedue,” Felix says.

Dimitri freezes. His face is disbelieving. Contorts, a range of emotions flashing over him so quickly Felix cannot hope to interpret them all.

Dimitri is a maelstrom, a whirlwind. He was so impossible, at first, that even the restraints flashing at his wrists and throat could not contain him. He howled like a storm through Felix’s home, all flashing thunder and deafening cracks of lightning.

A storm that flickered and faltered, as the weeks went on. A storm that could not last forever. That died.

Felix didn’t want that. He’d never wanted that.

He shoves the letter out, waving it in front of Dimitri’s frozen face. Slowly, Dimitri raises his hand. Promptly remembers he is wearing dirty gloves and yanks them off, throwing them to the ground. With trembling bare fingers, he takes the letter from Felix.

He stares at it. Mouth open. Eyes wide.

“This is… this is his writing,” he says dumbly. He looks at Felix. And for the first time in a long time his expression is entirely open (is _Dimitri_ again, the boy Felix remembers even if those memories are confused and fractured - beast, prince, tempest) though it doesn’t last. Shock morphs into anger, a dark cloud passing over his features. “He’s alive? You never told me he was alive.”

There is a world of accusation in that sentence. But Felix’s reply is short and to the point. “I didn’t know.”

It’s the truth. But as he says it, the words feel uncomfortable in his mouth, and his stomach twists. He _didn’t_ know Dedue was alive. Felix last saw Dedue in the final battle against the kingdom, when everything devolved into chaos, when soldiers transformed into monsters and Rhea turned her back on the kingdom and fled. He saw Dedue wounded. Saw Dedue fall.

But Dedue didn’t die, not there. Not then.

Felix doesn’t think about it. Not because of what he did, but because of what he shouldn't have done.

In front of him, here and now, Dimitri’s eyes race over the paper. His breath is coming faster and faster. Unsteady, approaching a state of shock, and he sways on his feet.

Without thinking, Felix jerks forward. Takes him by the arm, and it is only then that he thinks better of it, but by then it is too late. He freezes, steadying hand still on Dimitri's elbow, waiting to see what Dimitri will do.

(Lash out, strike him, throw him off as much as his contained strength will allow. Or go still. Horror, disgust, _fear_.)

The answer, in fact, is nothing. So Felix breathes out and guides him over to the bench sitting haphazardly in the middle of the garden, another casualty of Dimitri’s chronic reorganisation. Dimitri barely seems to notice. He lets Felix lower him into the seat without complaint. He is trembling, letter clutched so tightly in hand that his knuckles are white.

“ _Alive_ ,” he breathes, eyes wet, voice choked.

It's harder than expected for Felix to draw back his hand, to step away. His hands twitch with Dimitri's phantom warmth, and Felix clutches them tight behind his back.

"Are you all right?" he says roughly, always roughly. Barks it out like it's something unpleasant, but Felix doesn't know how else to be.

Dimitri looks up. His eyes are so startlingly, strikingly blue. Says, pleading, “May I write to him?

 _Pleading_. Dimitri’s voice is so small, his shoulders hunched, his eyes wet. And he is pleading.

“I’m not your master,” Felix snaps reflexively. “Do what you want.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. His jaw snaps shut, his cheeks warming. Bracing for Dimitri to explode, or for his eyes to go dull and empty. Equally dangerous. Equally unwanted, and Felix curses himself.

Dimitri does neither. He just looks back at his letter. Smooths reverent fingers over the paper.

“I had no idea,” he says. “I can scarcely believe…”

Felix didn’t know either. He refuses to feel guilty for keeping the possibility of Dedue’s survival from Dimitri – Felix didn’t _know_.

After the battle, everything was still in chaos. But Felix went back to where Dedue had fallen. Badly wounded, but not dead. And Felix did something he shouldn’t have done. Dedue was an enemy combatant, the loyal vassal of the defeated king - Felix should have finished him off. Should have killed him then and there, mercy to Dedue and loyalty to his emperor.

“Go,” he had snarled instead. Breathless, trembling. Barely listening to the words passing his own lips. “Get out of here.”

And Dedue had. Felix had never known if he made it out alive or died of his injuries. He never tried to find out.

He never breathed a word of it to Dimitri. He didn’t dare. To give him hope, only to take it away again…

Felix swallows. Dimitri is here, bathed in sunlight, very much alive. He is reading and rereading his letter, mouthing the words silently back to himself.

His eyes are shining. They are shining, and Felix…

“Write to him,” he says. “I’ll make sure he receives it.”

Dedue didn’t enclose a return address, and Felix has no idea where to find him. But he’s resourceful. He has money, and influence, and power - he’s one of the most powerful men in the empire, when all is said and done.

He still feels oddly helpless when Dimitri looks up at him with those shining eyes.

“Thank you,” Dimitri breathes.

Felix nods briskly, clearing his throat. “No matter.” He hesitates. Makes a decision, abruptly. “I’ll leave you to it.”

He goes. But as he closes the garden gate behind him, he can’t help but look back. Dimitri is still sitting on the bench, still clutching his letter tight in hand. His sunhat is askew, the scent of his well-tended roses fresh on the air.

It's dangerous. Felix doesn't know if he did the right thing in giving the letter to him, or in allowing futher correspondence to take place. If something were to happen to Dedue now, or if people from the empire found out...

Felix will deal with it. Whatever comes. He will deal with it.

(Cannot regret it, when there is joy written across Dimitri's face.)


End file.
